"Xian'er, when will you change your willful temper? Liangzhou is not a place for fun. Before the caravan has gone far, you must return to Chang'an as soon as possible!"
"Brother-in-law, just take me there. I promise not to cause any trouble for you. If you ask me to go east, I will never go west! I have left a letter for my parents. I am not sneaking out this time." Liu Xiang Er tugged on Song Che's sleeves and opened his big pleading eyes.
"If you take me with you this time, I will forget what happened that night..."
"Boss Song, it's rare for Miss Liu to be so interested in doing business. Please take her with you. She is about the same age as Dina, so she will be a companion along the way." Tang Hulu advised from the side.
Song Che cursed in his heart, you damn thing have the nerve to persuade others, I don’t even want to take your daughter with you. Now that she has been away from Chang'an for a day, if she is sent back, she will have to be escorted. And with this girl's character, she will definitely not stay in Chang'an honestly.
Song Che sighed and finally nodded. Liu Xiang'er cheered for joy, pedaled on the shaft and climbed onto the roof of the truck.
"Let's go to the Western Region, let's go to the Western Region..." I hope this journey can be as innocent as hers.
"Keep going!"... The caravan traveled northwest along the official road, passing through Fengxiang, Weizhou, Lanzhou, crossing the Luohe River, the Weishui River, the Yellow River, and crossing the Loess Plateau. The whole journey was more than 1,800 miles. It took one and a half months to finally arrive at the Hexi Corridor, the most important economic lifeline in the northwest.
Almost everyone was in darkness, except for the warm sun in May and the wind and dust that had no time to wash away.
In the past month and a half, Song Che had taken a total of three baths. He was used to being sloppy and became careless.
On the other hand, these female swordsmen would rather save water if their throats were dry from thirst, and apply a layer of white jade ointment every night.
"Brother-in-law, how long do we have until we arrive at Xiliang City?" Liu Xiang'er sat cross-legged in the truck, holding her cheeks in her hands, facing the endless loess, she had lost her original excitement.
"Come on, come on, we have entered the boundary of Liangzhou. It will only take two or three days to reach Xiliang City." Liangzhou, as its name suggests, is a desolate and barbaric land. The Gobi and desert on the left represent
"Desolation", represented by the prairie on the right
"Cool", and the people living here represent
"brutal". And it is precisely because of the perennial wars and desolation and barbarism here that many gangsters who have committed crimes will come here to take refuge.
The government and the army are thinking about how to protect the border. They have no time to control the criminals on this land and cannot control them.
"Stop! Don't run! Chase him!" Seven or eight men with machetes were chasing a man with disheveled hair and slashing wildly.
The caravan gave way on its own. Regarding this matter, it will not be surprising if you see it more. There were so many criminals in Liangzhou that the government was unable to regulate them, so they could only post notices offering rewards. A robber's head was often worth hundreds of taels of silver. Over time, a large number of bounty hunters emerged.
They were more like gangsters than bounty hunters. They walked on the road, comparing the portraits and confirming the target. If there was an unlucky passerby who looked similar to the wanted criminal in the painting, he would probably be hacked to death, and then his head would be cut off and presented to the government to collect the reward.
"Hey, merchants, don't come here yet, lest I spill your blood!" Although this group of bounty hunters looks extremely vicious, they are very moral. Apart from being keen on killing people in exchange for money, they will never offend passing businessmen. .
Song Che temporarily stopped the caravan and waited until they finished cutting. Seeing those seven or eight bounty hunters, they caught up with the disheveled man and surrounded him in the middle of the avenue.
"Young horse bandit, I think you should just surrender and be captured. The government said that the reward for catching someone alive is 300 taels, and the reward for a dead one is only 200 taels. Anyway, you can't run away today, so you might as well give your brothers a fortune." How about it?" The leader of the hunter raised his knife and spoke.
Although the man's face was covered by messy hair, his eyes were very sharp, and he did not panic at all when facing the situation of being besieged.
He was wearing leather clothes and his attire did not look like that of a Liang man. Liangzhou is located on the border. There are Liang people, Qiang people, Hu people, and all kinds of people who steal, cheat, abduct, cheat, rob, rob, and smuggle.
"You've got the wrong person. I'm just an ordinary passerby, not a horse bandit!" The man tried his best to defend himself.
The head hunter held up the portrait and compared it with the man. Song Che used the binoculars and took a curious look at the portrait. It looked like a ghost. Except for the disheveled hair, which was the same as that of a man, there were no other conveniences. It is estimated that the person who painted the portrait had never seen the true appearance of the horse bandit. Bar?
If the man under siege went out to comb his hair this morning, he would definitely not be hacked.
"Don't you fucking quibble, you look exactly like this portrait, you are a horse bandit!" The head hunter put the portrait in his arms and said: "Two hundred taels, two hundred taels, brothers, we haven't opened our doors for a long time. Okay, let’s have a good start today!”
"Kick him to death!" The bounty hunters swarmed forward. Apart from being rough and arrogant, they don't seem to have very good martial arts skills. They just hack people to death and that counts.
But that man was different. Facing the machetes, he could dodge them with ease, and even hit a few with his fists.
But it was hard for two fists to defeat four hands, and the man was still at a disadvantage. In the end, he was kicked to the ground and was about to be hacked to death with random swords——
"Bang!" A gunshot rang out, shocking the sky. The bounty hunters stopped wielding their knives and turned to look at the shooter.
Song Che blew the gunpowder smoke, walked forward with a smile and said: "Brothers, you cut it wrong, you cut it wrong..." The head hunter glared: "Businessmen, you want to steal the job?"
"No, no, no," Song Che shook his head and explained, "This man is not a horse bandit. Even if you hack him to death, you won't get the reward. The real horse bandit was hacked to death as early as yesterday!"
"What!" The hunter leader stepped forward and grabbed Song Che's collar, spitting: "How do you know he was hacked to death? Who was he hacked to death!?" Song Che covered his nose to block the bad breath, Said: "My caravan only took this road from south to north. Along the way, I saw several groups of bounty hunters looking for horse bandits. One of them was seven and a half feet tall, quite strong, and had a big beard. Oh, by the way, there seems to be some pockmarks on his face. He was the one who hacked the horse bandit to death. I saw it with my own eyes and it is absolutely true!" Seven and a half feet is an average height.
It's common to grow strong. Men in the Northwest all grow beards. If you have been exposed to wind and dust for a long time, your skin will definitely be bad.
In rough places, do rough things, tell rough lies, and deceive rough people. The head hunter raised his eyebrows, lost in thought, his eyes lit up, and he suddenly realized: "Damn it, it must be that bastard like Wang Ermazi who stole my business!"
